With news that Health Sciences North, along with several other Ontario hospitals, had been hit with a computer virus last week, police services board chair Michael Vagnini asked at a recent meeting whether police computers could be hit with a similar attack.
“What do we have in place?” Vagnini asked at the Jan. 17 meeting.
Police CAO Sharon Baiden said keeping the system safe is obviously a big priority, and they have firewalls in place to secure data.
They also conduct regular security audits in which they contract specialized companies to try and hack their system to look for security flaws.
“We also maintain a comprehensive data backup,” she said, with a full copy of vital data kept secured in case of an issue.
HSN said Monday it was almost back to normal following last week's virus that forced the cancellation of some surgeries.
The hospital spent four days trying to purge the virus, which also disrupted programs and caused longer than usual delays in the emergency department. Greater Sudbury was one of 24 hospitals affected by the virus.
Many staffers worked through the weekend to get the system up and running again.
“In times of emergency, everyone @HSN_Sudbury came together for the patients,” HSN CAO Dominic Giroux tweeted Sunday. “People worked extremely long hours, did creative problem-solving and contingency planning, looked up for one another. Thank you, merci du fond du coeur! A lot of post-event work to accomplish as a team.”
